


A Favour, Runner to Runner

by glitter_grasshopper



Category: Mirror's Edge
Genre: F/F, M/M, this just happened lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 10:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15705378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitter_grasshopper/pseuds/glitter_grasshopper
Summary: A very flustered Nomad asks his best friend, Faith, for advice on his love life. Friendly banter and cute gayness.





	A Favour, Runner to Runner

**Author's Note:**

> i never would have thought of nomad/icarus but it was fully inspired by this http://mamaluciscaelum.tumblr.com/post/173962817606 wonderful fanart. i was roaming freely in Catalyst earlier thinking about convos Faith could be having with her friends via her earpiece when the idea for this fic came. Enjoy!

“Faith?” Faith blinked in surprise, her speed decreasing ever so slightly as she ran across a wide rooftop in Triumvirate Drive. It took her a second to pinpoint to whom the voice in her earpiece belonged, after which she picked up her momentum again.  
“Nomad? What’s up?”  
The two hadn’t seen each other for a few days, Nomad being, to her knowledge, located in one of his hiding spots in Regatta Bay. He rarely told her the locations of them, typically coming to her when in need of help, claiming it was “for her safety”. Faith usually found it endearing, and more rarely irritating, how he had himself convinced his hacking was a bigger threat to the Conglomerate and various Families than it really was. Just like with most things about him, Nomad tended to exaggerate, even in his thoughts. He had constructed a backstory for his unknown family, and had done the same for his status, which in his fantasies was “legendary”, a dangerous hacker and graffiti artist whom the entire City of Glass and nation of Cascadia feared.  
“Are you still in the Bay?” Faith leaped across the rooftop to the next, rolling as she landed to avoid damage to her ankles. “Did you hack that… yeah, I’m not gonna pretend I was listening, did you hack that thing you wanted?”  
She heard a soft scoff in her earpiece. “That _thing_ was a cutting edge piece of technology worth more scrip than every Runner and Lo-Caste in Glass put together. It was actually fascinating, it was this server that—“  
Faith jumped and attempted to grab a vertical pipe on the wall right in front of her, slipping as she latched onto it, and stopping her descent by placing her right foot on the cement wall abruptly with a small grunt.  
“--Oh shit, sorry, am I distracting you?”  
Her eyes moved to the top of the pipe a few metres above her, the bright afternoon sun making her squint as it reflected off of the glass surfaces on most of the buildings.  
“No, no, it’s fine. I mean, I’m glad you shut up about the server, but you’re not distracting me. It’s just been a while since I ran without radio silence, since—“ Faith cut herself off upon realising where she was headed, and began to climb up the pipe faster than before, roughly pulling herself above the ledge and hastily heading towards some scaffolding connecting the building she was on with the next one.  
“Yeah, I… sorry about that, Effy. It must still be hard talking about it.” She didn’t reply.  
“If you need to talk about it…” She continued to not say anything, rather preferring to pick up her pace, clenching her teeth.  
“Fine, be the badass, repress your trauma like the rest of us, see what good that does you”  
“Nomad, I swear I’m going to run all the way to Regatta Bay and kick your skinny little ass” She finally broke her silence as she vaulted over a short fence using a discarded crate as a platform.  
“Well, I would have you know that ‘A’, I’m technically no longer skinny since I started doing that exercise routine posted on the official-unofficial Runner Forum—“  
“You actually read that garbage?” Faith interjected as she built up momentum to use her MAG Rope on a balcony fence directly above her.  
“—and ‘B’” Nomad continued like he hadn’t heard Faith, “I’m not even in Regatta Bay, I’m at the Lair”  
Faith frowned in confusion. “This soon? I thought you’d be around the Docks for the whole week”  
“Don’t worry about it, I can tell you are. It’s fine, I just gave up on the server thing, it was a bit, ah, out of my league”  
Faith smiled to herself, it was rare to see Nomad admit he actually couldn’t do something for a change. She was relieved to say the least that he was keeping himself out of trouble, well aware of the constant irony in her life of her wanting her friends to stay safe but continuing to make the riskiest possible choices herself.  
“Good to know, I should be done with this drop-off in about 20 minutes max, and then I’ll head home. Thanks for warning me about seeing your dumb face, didn’t wanna get caught off guard”  
Nomad snorted dismissively, making Faith giggle. Their friendship was based almost entirely on teasing each other, having grown familiar enough to understand perfectly well that it was never serious. Faith took a moment to herself to enjoy this moment, that she was, even under the severe eye of the Conglomerate, relatively free, out of juvie, her debt to Dogen repaid, and being able to laugh with one of the few truly close friends she had.  
“Hilarious.” Nomad brought Faith out of her thoughts. “Listen, I didn’t just call you to get insulted, or ask you to alert the media of my arrival”  
“No?”  
“Nooooo. I, uh, kinda need your advice. Or, at least I think I do? Basically I want to tell you something because I feel like I’m supposed to. Or maybe I need to discuss it, I’m not sure. Actually, this is dumb, nevermind—“  
“Nomad. Out with it.” Faith never had patience for Nomad’s endless rambles when he felt put on the spot, so she tried to cut it short with her best stern tone she had learnt from Noah, while sliding under a thick air vent.  
“Fine. Okay, it’s super weird to say so I’m just gonna spit it out”  
Faith rolled her eyes in amusement, perfectly used to her friend’s flair for the dramatic when it came to any personal issue of his. _“I bet a week’s scrip he hacked into something he shouldn’t have and now he needs me to bail him_ out _”_ she thought to herself.  
“Icarus asked me out”  
She tripped over herself on flat ground, sloppily rolling to avoid injuring herself, and grunting loudly.  
“… Faith? Oh my god, did you die?”  
For a second, she tried to process what she had just heard. “Icarus? Our Icarus? Tall, sunglasses, bit of a dick?”  
“Uh, yeah, that guy. Weird right?” Nomad laughed awkwardly.  
“Since when does Nomad like boys?” Faith asked curiously.  
“Well, Effy, I don’t mean to offend you, but I doubt Icarus would share his personal stuff with you considering you stopped wanting him to fall off the Shard, oh, I don’t know, like, yesterday?”  
Faith was now running at her normal speed again, heading for a metal ladder.  
“It’s not that I expected him to share you _ass_ , he’s just so… loud, constantly, that I’m surprised I haven’t heard of this”  
“He’s loud about his running records, not what he puts in his mouth. Kind of the same as you”  
Faith clicked her tongue irritably. “Okay, wow”  
“Oh, Effy, don’t act offended, I know you generally keep to yourself, but you have to admit that, just like Ike, you tend to be a bit too proud of your accomplishments, but no one knows much about your personal life. How else do you think you’re not getting asked about Miss Prodigy?”  
Faith was happy they weren’t in each other’s physical presence, otherwise he would see the extraordinary sight of her blushing for the first time in at least 5 years.  
“Just say you’re jealous of her skills and go, Nomad”  
“SHE ISN’T BETTER—you know what, I’m not here to debate this- it being that I’m much cooler and smarter than your genius girlfriend, can we go back to my thing?” Faith was happy he didn’t push the topic further, but was also well aware how the conversation would have went: she would have defended Plastic, both because she was genuinely a brilliant hacker and her genuinely brilliant girlfriend, and Nomad would insist she’s somehow inferior to him because she isn’t a Runner.  
“Alright, alright. Wait- did you just call Icarus “Ike”?”  
“Not the point!” Nomad practically yelled into her ear as he was audibly flustered.  
“Then what is it? Icarus is into guys, he asked you out, simple. Aren’t you into him?”  
“No, I—I don’t know. He’s super hot—“  
“Ew.”  
“-Shut up Effy- but I’m just… weirded out, I guess? Like, we’ve only ever talked when you’re around and I absolutely had no signals he’s into me, and he’s always acting so, like, terminally cool and into himself”  
Faith laughed loudly. “Terminally cool? Like, so cool that—“  
“That he could drop dead at any given moment, yeah. Kinda like y—“  
“Watch it, twig.” Faith snapped.  
“Yikes, okay, Plastic may be good at typing, but obviously her fingers aren’t doing much for-“  
“Nomad, one more word and I’ll make sure to run through a Blue patrol and lead them straight to you”  
“Fine, fine.”  
Faith was now running across a narrow bridge connecting two skyscrapers, looking at the bright billboards around her. “Nomad?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Did you say you’d go out with him or not?”  
“I, uh, panicked and said I’d let him know”  
“Oof. What do you want to say?”  
There was a brief pause before Faith got an answer. “I really wanna say yes, ‘cause I think I really like him. I was just worried you’d cuss me out or somethin’”  
Faith didn’t expect to hear that of all things. “Cuss you out? Why?”  
“Well, you kinda hate him” Nomad replied cautiously.  
“Nom, I hated him when I met him. I’ve been cool with him ever since Noah—ever since we had to work for Rebecca”  
Nomad immediately picked up on the change of her tone at her accidental mention of Noah, and rushed to keep the conversation going.  
“So, you’re fine with it? I can just tell him I’m up for it?”  
“Yeah, go for it! About time you got some and let me enjoy what I have” Faith said with a smirk.  
“What you have is a socially awkward, overconfident—“  
“Bye, Nom. Tell Icarus I said hi” Faith interrupted her friend and turned off her earpiece both to avoid one of his rants and because she had just spotted the vent in which she was supposed to hide the yellow bag she was carrying. She looked around for security cameras or patrols, and moved forward.  
On the other end of the just-abandoned line, a very anxious Nomad was pacing around the Lair practising all the different ways he could say “Hi” in.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm poor, please give me kudos and comments. Also, if you genuinely enjoyed the idea, let me know and I might make this multi-chapter so we see the relationships between Icarus/Nomad and Faith/Plastic?


End file.
